May 14, 2009

Tanning Boehner Over Intelligence
Posted by Adam Blickstein

Seems like John Boehner's confidence in information from the intelligence community changes far more frequently then the orange pigmentation of his skin. Boehner today:

"It's hard for me to imagine that our intelligence area would ever mislead a member of Congress."

Yeah, I guess all that pre-war intelligence falsely asserting that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction or that whole claim of a connection between al Qaida and Saddam Hussein's Iraq aside. Here's Boehner talking about pre-war intelligence:

"It's
clear to all of us, Democrats and Republicans, that we have flawed
intelligence. The CIA have bad intelligence, the Pentagon had bad intelligence and, for that matter, all of our allies around the world had the same bad intelligence."

But of course we all now know the Defense Intelligence Agency was rather manipulative with its use of pre-war intelligence as presented to Congress and the public:

A top-level Defense Department official skewed intelligence reports
about Iraq in 2001 and 2002 in an attempting to justify an invasion,
according to an inspector general's report from the Pentagon. The
Senate Armed Services Committee discussed the report today.

...according to acting Pentagon Inspector Thomas Gimble, who defended
the report before the panel, the problem was not the criticism Feith's
office aimed at the CIA. The problem was that the office presented only
one side of highly controversial intelligence assessments.

For Boehner, there seems to be a thick line between "mislead" and "bad intelligence." And here's Boehner discussing the 2007 Iran NIE:

"Either I don't have confidence in what they told me several months ago
or I don't have confidence in what they're telling me today."

A top-level Defense Department official skewed intelligence reports about Iraq in 2001 and 2002 in an attempting to justify an invasion, according to an inspector general's report from the Pentagon. The Senate Armed Services Committee discussed the report today.seslisohbetseslichat

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